


Regrets (are what keep Percy up at night)

by The_Otter_Knight



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, As in the possibility, Everybody else is only mentioned, F/M, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Only Percy and Annabeth are in the story, Out of Character, Post-The Blood of Olympus, Pre-Slash, Self-Doubt, Sexuality Crisis, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-02 19:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4072525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Otter_Knight/pseuds/The_Otter_Knight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>What if he found someone else, but still fell asleep to the thought of you?</i>
</p><p>Percy doubts his relationship (only slightly because he loves Annabeth, he really, truly does -- or at least he thinks so) and wonders about what could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regrets (are what keep Percy up at night)

Annabeth is up against his side, warm and comforting. She is a solid weight, a force that ties him down, that snaps his thoughts from Tartarus and all that happened there. She is everything that he has ever wanted, and more.

And yet..

_"You're cute. But you're just not my type."_

Percy closes his eyes, furrowing his brow and takes a deep breath. It's been three gruelling weeks since Nico dropped that bombshell on him. He had been surprised, for sure, and hasn't really thought too much of it, or at least tried not to.

How could someone like him not suspect a thing? Oh. Well, he hadn't realized Rachel had a thing for him once, until Grover pointed it out. Calypso had liked him once, too, but she had Leo now. How could Nico possibly like him? Percy was the one who had let Bianca die.

He feels Annabeth grows restless beside him, stretching before turning her back to him, sleeping soundly in their slightly humid apartment in New Rome.

Percy doesn't turn his head to look at her, instead he continues to stare at the ceiling, where he glued glow in the dark fishes on. When he grew tired enough, they looked like they moved.

Nico ... had done all of those wonderful things for him. Saved his life. Helped him with his quests. Turned against his own father for him. How could Nico -- the strong, fearless, steel-hearted, dead raising demigod -- ever find a reason to have a crush on Percy?

How could Percy ever get past something like that?

It made him doubt everything he's ever done, made him think that maybe he was leading the other boy on, that maybe if he had tried to find him, had reached out to him, maybe then.. What would have happened then? If Percy hadn't listened to everybody else, listened to their spouts that Nico was better off left alone -- granted, Nico was usually the one shouting that at him --, had instead tried to make the boy feel welcomed, would he still find a reason to have a crush on Percy?

He grows restless at the idea, although he isn't sure if it was in a good or bad way. He wasn't distressed over the idea, really, far from it. Just ... confused. On why it was him and not Jason, or ... or Leo or any other guy that Nico was close with.

The problem -- which there was one, it was what kept him up at night, not including the night terrors of Tartarus -- wasn't that Nico had a crush on him. It was the thought that maybe, if things had been different, Percy could have had a crush on him too.

Maybe, if he had followed through on that strange attraction that he had felt towards Luke, so long ago, maybe Percy would know for sure if a relationship between Percy and Nico was even possible. If what he had felt once, towards his sort of cousin was real and romantic, or if it was just some of weird brotherly affection feeling.

He thinks that maybe, if he knew if he was as hundred percent straight as everyone seemed to think, then maybe he would stop thinking about the possibility and stop doubting his relationship with Annabeth.

Percy was in a relationship, so he very well couldn't go up to Nico and ask him to kiss him "just so I'd know" or casually ask Jason to progress their bromance into something more -- he could already imagine how awkward that would be -- and he knows he'd be vaporized on the spot if he asked Uncle Hades to bring back Luke's ghost just so he could ask if the connection between them had been real.

He doesn't know what to label what he feels towards Nico as. It feels dangerously similar to what he felt -- feels -- towards Annabeth, but he can't know for sure. Does it feel different for a boy? Or is he just imagining it, because the possibility was haunting him?

Would he have been happy with Nico? Would they have eventually married, and either adopted or found out if "the sea's fertility" applied to him too? Would they grow old together, making sarcastic comments in their rocking chairs and just enjoying the air and the fact that they're together? Was it weird that he had a clearer vision of what he'd like with Nico, clearer than what he saw with Annabeth?

Does it even matter anymore? Nico was awfully close to the head of Apollo's cabin, Will Solace. Piper was beginning to say that it was likely they were going to date, if they aren't already. Watching them together, he believes her. It leaves him with an uneasy feeling, not strong enough like it would be if he saw Annabeth with someone else, but close enough. Some nights, he wonders if Nico was falling in love with Will but maybe .. and it was a foolish hope really, but maybe .. he still fell asleep to the thought of him. Percy knows it is a stupid hope, though, and he doesn't know why he'd wish for such a thing. Nico's happiness is all he wants.

If there is one thing that Percy knows for sure though, is that he shouldn't stay awake at night anymore, alone with his thoughts, if it always leads down this pathway. Always leading to him doubting and hoping when before this, before Gaea's war, he would have been happy, would have been fine.

Percy would swear on the River Styx that when his eyes sting it is because of how tired he is, and nothing else. He turns on his side and breaths in the scent of coconut and grass and freshly inked paper, pretending that he wasn't wishing that it was the scent of mildew, crispy McDonald's, and earth that filled his nose. He closes his eyes and dreams of what could have been but now never will be.


End file.
